


If (extended version)

by Umeko



Category: The Three Musketeers (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Death, Gang Rape, M/M, Object Insertion, Oral Sex, Psychological Torture, Rape Aftermath, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:13:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umeko/pseuds/Umeko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mission to London to retrieve the Queen's diamonds goes horribly wrong. The musketeers pay the price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Porthos

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer – 3 Musketeers and the characters belong to Alexander Dumas. 
> 
> This is a darkfic with major and graphic torture and character death. It was written when I was in a very, very dark place. Don’t like, don’t read. Everyone dies except the bad guys. Has torture and rape. 2011 movie-verse.
> 
> This was meant to be an extended version of the fic on fanfiction.net. However, I have rewritten it to include multiple POVs.

They had bested that pompous ass Buckingham. The look on his face was priceless as D’Artagnan leapt on board the vessel they had stolen from the duke. The airship was an unusual craft but she sailed like a bird above London. Then the church spire loomed ahead like an ominous black finger. “No!” the word was out of Porthos’ mouth a split second before they ploughed headlong into the church and the row of townhouses in her shadow.

His left leg would not work. Aramis and Athos were pulling him free of the wreck. Porthos groaned when he caught a glimpse of what was left of his shattered leg. His heart fell like a rock. His career as a musketeer was over. His Majesty had no place for peg legs in his Musketeer Corps. The shock wore off and pain blazed through his body, lancing up from his mangled limb. Aramis was barely keeping him upright. Athos was arguing with D’Artagnan but their voices sounded so far away…

* * *

 

He had no idea how he came to be lying on a bed. Through the haze of pain, he could make out Aramis’ solemn features. “I’m sorry… now drink…”

A mug was held to his lips. It tasted of brandy. He drank greedily. There was nothing like a spot of brandy to prepare him for what was to come. When he was done, Athos held him down and Aramis readied the blade…

A dull boom roused him from his slumber. This was wrong. He could not move his limbs for the brandy and pain. _They needed his help!_ Aramis was screaming in pain but he could not rise from his bed. The shouts and clang of steel on steel echoed in the narrow confines of the room. Porthos forcibly pulled himself out of his haze. _Where was his sword?_ Athos and D’Artagnan were putting up a fierce fight but they were outnumbered. Aramis was on the floor, hurt. Porthos called out to him and his friend turned in the direction of his voice. He reached out a hand, which Aramis gripped onto like a drowning man. _His face!_ It was raw and his eyebrows were singed off. His eyes were swollen shut from powder burns. Aramis was utterly blind and helpless. Groggily, Porthos tore a strip of linen off his sheets. Aramis once said that injured eyes should not be exposed to light. Porthos hoped he had recalled the words correctly as he tied the makeshift bandage around Aramis’ wounded eyes.

The effort had him sprawled out on the bed with exhaustion. He felt the slight bite of a sword point at his throat. Athos’ sword hit the floorboards with a clatter…

* * *

 

Porthos could not recall how they got from the room where he had his crude surgery to the fetid hellhole of a dungeon cell where he awoke manacled. Aramis was with him. Athos too. Like Porthos, they were both shackled to the prison wall. There was no sign of the boy. Things were grim. Buckingham was as spitting mad as a cat with its tail aflame and there was no doubt they would pay for their deeds.

“Where’s the boy?” Porthos asked weakly as Athos dribbled some bitter-tasting water into his mouth. He avoided looking at his bandaged leg stump. “Is he…”

“He’s alive, but they took him…” Athos’ voice was flat as he turned his attention to Aramis. Aramis’ hands were outstretched in front of him for Athos’ attention. His fingers were all swollen, crooked and bloody. He had been tortured.

“Aramis, your eyes?” The bandage was still tied about his eyes.

Aramis shook his head resignedly. “Mon ami, you have been out for a while. We were afraid the fever…”

The guards came for them then on Buckingham’s orders. “You have destroyed my office, ruined my favourite clothes and rained destruction on the fair city of London… and you shall pay for it now.” the duke ordered as he made himself comfortable at a table to oversee the torture. Porthos had heard the many horror stories whispered of the Tower dungeons but they did little justice to the horrors which awaited them. Buckingham had hired the worst scum of society, more beasts then men, to do his dirty work. He and Athos were hung from their wrists and flogged until their backs were in ribbons.

Aramis was put on the dreaded rack and stretched until it seemed they would tear his limbs from their sockets. Glowing-hot iron rods were pressed into their skin until the air was filled with the stench of seared flesh. Aramis protested when a guard snatched that silver cross he so treasured off his neck. The thief only grunted and smashed his cudgel into Aramis’ jaw with a sickening crack. Aramis’ head lolled and only the raspy sound of his breath hinted at life.

Porthos growled when the duke laughed maliciously at his friend’s mistreatment. Then Buckingham made the mistake of walking too close to him. Porthos hawked up a gob of spit which hit Buckingham squarely in the front of his fancy doublet.

“A hundred lashes for this one- no – make it five hundred…” The duke yanked his head back roughly and spat into his face.

“You’d kill him,” Athos protested. Twenty-four lashes were enough to render a man’s back in ribbons. The duke only laughed coldly.

“Well, you lot are professionals… spread it out over a week or something. Just keep him alive for a good hanging and quartering or it’s on _your_ heads!” the duke purred and toasted his crew of torturers. “Oh, you can entertain yourselves however you see fit with our guests, just have them alive for me when I get back from the palace…” he yawned as if bored with the proceedings. The crew gave each other leering grins.

* * *

 

 _They were a bunch of creative bastards, their hosts_ … Porthos mused through a haze of pain as he tried to dodge the coals his tormentors were lobbing at his foot. More often, he could not make out the words when the crew spoke. He thought he heard a lilt of Spanish, a grunt of German and more shockingly, a tinge of French. The dark-complexioned one was definitely a Moor. He had taken a delight in beating the soles of Athos’ feet with a strap until Athos could only crawl on his knees from the pain. That was definitely a method preferred by that race, so Porthos heard. The others came over to kick at and piss on Athos as he crawled to where Aramis languished in the stocks. Porthos must have passed out when they did whatever it was to Aramis. His friend’s head was hanging down and the front of the stocks was blood-stained.

He screamed as more red-hot embers were emptied from the brazier onto his bare foot. He hopped as far away from the coals as the chains would allow. The whip bit mercilessly into his chest. His back was a raw wound.

“Nice dance,” someone jested. He could not help it as the pain sent spasms through his body.

“Not enough…” someone else came close, slapping a cudgel against the stones.

The cudgel smashed repeatedly into his stump and remaining leg until the shin finally shattered…

* * *

 

 _“Porthos…”_ He was too hot, no, too cold. He was freezing, no, burning up in a fire. Someone was sponging his brow. It no longer made sense.

_He was in Paris, drinking a toast with his fellows at the guardhouse. Aramis and Athos were there joking and laughing alongside him as they congratulated him on becoming a baron. No, that’s not right at all… He was a boy, helping his friend Olivier sneak away from his tutor. Their fathers would have them spanked if they were caught… The apples were ripening in the orchard, begging to be picked. Then they would go peep at the gypsy girls bathing at the mill pond._

_“Stay with me, please…”_

_They were at a private party at Madame Fanny’s, a celebration before D’Artagnan married his pretty lady-in-waiting. The room was chokingly flooded with musk and other perfumes. The fairest and most skilled courtesans in the city were entertaining them. The minx in his lap was doing all kinds of things to his body which had him wanting more…_ Wait, there was some boy sobbing. _Was it D’Artagnan? Why was he crying?_ Suddenly the air stank of piss, shit and blood.

 _“Fever… He’s dying…”_ A hand gripped his. The rest of the words were a distant hum.

Those words he did hear didn’t make any sense to him at all. _Porthos was not dying… He’s going to be a baron, wed a pretty young heiress and fill his home with a dozen stalwart sons. Well, daughters might be charming too… Athos would be godfather to his firstborn… He’d invite his friends over for hunts and grand dinners… D’Artagnan will likely produce a dozen children of his own and he’d probably have to be godfather to a few of them…_

* * *

 

People were cheering. _Was it a parade by His Majesty? Where’s his horse? The Musketeers always accompanied His Majesty during the parades as guard of honour…_ Someone grabbed him under the arms and he was dragged up. Something smashed into his shoulder, biting to the bone.

 _Oh God, it hurt so bad!_ Pain blazed through his fevered frame. _It hurt… God, no, make it stop…make it…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Porthos is delirious towards the end. Hopefully the next POV will clarify things a bit.


	2. Aramis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next POV has more torture and perhaps clarifications on some parts of what was going on in the earlier POV.

Aramis was pragmatic enough to recognise the only way of preserving Porthos’ life was to remove that mangled leg, bone and all. Still, it did not make it any easier. Porthos had passed out from the mix of pain and brandy. The furrows of pain and fear had left his features and he seemed almost peaceful as Aramis gingerly undid the belt he had tied just above the stump to pinch the blood vessels shut. There was no dreaded spurt of blood. The wound had been cauterized well. A length of clean bandages finished the job. After which it would be up to Porthos’ robust constitution to see him through.

“Leave London now… Go,” Athos hissed to D’Artagnan.

“Not without you, Monsieur,” the young man protested stubbornly. Porthos was in no fit state for the ardours of travel. They were trapped in an unfriendly and alien city.

Their host was not back yet despite his offer of a meal in their rooms. His gaze flitted over to the grimy window. There were shouts and cries from outside. Aramis wished he had paid more attention to learning some English phrases from that feisty English seamstress he once took up with. Athos and Porthos might have some knowledge of the tongue from their sailing days. The streets were still in chaos after the airship crashed. Aramis prayed no one else had been seriously hurt or worse. He clutched at the cross about his neck for a moment. Something was not right. He felt the hair on the nape of his neck prickle. Too many soldiers outside and they were massing outside the house they were in… He unconsciously let go of his cross and moved for his pistol.

The door burst open as he leapt up. He aimed his pistol at the nearest attacker and pulled the trigger. All hell broke loose as his entire vision was swallowed in a sea of fire. His face was aflame. He was blinded. Screaming from the sheer agony of it, he fell onto the floor.

“A-aramis…” Someone was calling him over the clashing steel all around. He crept in the direction of the voice. A large hand gripped his. It could only be Porthos. “Y-you… H-hang on …” Porthos slurred as a piece of cloth was tied around his ruined eyes like a blindfold.

* * *

 

 _Darkness all around._ He could not see. The air was foul here. The manacles on his wrists and ankles were heavy. He could hear Athos’ voice and Porthos’ weak groans as they were roughly manhandled. D’Artagnan’s protests were conspicuously absent. _Oh, his eyes, his face… they were burning._

“D’Artagnan?” he croaked weakly.

“Alive… but knocked out in the fight…” Athos replied. Porthos’ groans faded away as Aramis was roughly shoved round a corner.

 _A room._ He could hear the crackle of a log fire. The air was fresher than the corridor outside. Athos hissed an obscenity which told Aramis they were before the duke. He was forced into a chair and tied down. Sounds from nearby hinted that Athos was being similarly dealt with. Aramis never thought he would feel so helpless, unable to see or anticipate what was coming. 

“Welcome to my office. My old one used to have a lovely view of the city- until you blew it up,” the duke said icily. Something heavy and cold was placed on Aramis’ finger. _It felt like…_ Aramis screamed as his finger was broken. The metallic device was moved onto the next finger. Athos cussed the duke soundly in English.

“There, there… One would expect better manners from a Comte. Now you should apologize for the damage you and your friends have done…” the duke purred menacingly. Aramis choked back another scream as another finger was broken. Athos was yelling at the duke to stop to no avail. Another finger was broken in response to Athos’ futile shouts. Aramis tasted blood as he bit through his lip trying to swallow his cries.

“I would have extended an invitation to the other two but they-” _Another finger._ “-apparently lacked the courtesy to stay awake…” the duke drawled.

Aramis’ hands were a throbbing mass of pain when the duke was done. Every finger on his hands had been crushed, broken or mangled.

* * *

 

 _The rack._ He recognized the instrument as soon as his tormentors had him secured on it. Under the duke’s direction, he was stretched until he could not help crying out in agony. Perhaps they would die there… He could hear Porthos’ and Athos’ pained cries over the cracks of the whips and the hiss of the irons applied to their skins. He did the only thing he could. He prayed hard, far harder than he had ever done. The slight weight of his cross was a meagre comfort. God would hear his prayers… _He’d give up soldiering, go back to the Church. He’d obey the rules of obedience, poverty and chastity…_

The cross was lifted off his chest and a tug snapped the cord from which it hung from his neck. “No!” Aramis bleated in shock. Something smashed into his face and broke his jaw. The last conscious thought before Aramis blacked out was that God had abandoned them.

* * *

 

It was torture but Aramis tried to gulp down the water and gruel Athos dripped between his lips. His hands were useless. He could not see even when Athos removed the bandage to clean his eyes. He had lost a few teeth and his jaw was aching so much he could barely speak. He felt so helpless. Porthos was moaning nearby. There was still no sign of D’Artagnan. Aramis gingerly crawled over to Porthos. The skin was too warm, suggesting a possible infection. Porthos cried out in pain.

“Don’t… His back is badly hurt…” Athos warned. Aramis pulled away from his friend guiltily. He had not meant to hurt Porthos.

* * *

 

 _More torture._ Aramis learnt to distinguish their tormentors by their voices and accents. The one with the Hamburg accent was chatting with the Italian one as they took turns hitting him across his bare back and bottom with leather straps as he hung in the stocks. He tried hard not to scream from the pain. He would not give them that satisfaction. With him on his knees, the position allowed them access to his person for more unsavoury purposes and Aramis prayed they would stick to flogging him. 

“So, you have not enjoyed that bit of French ass yet? Better go get your share before he gets all loose from all the stuffing he’s been getting…”

“He any good a fuck?”

“As skilled as they come. They do say Gascon boys’re talented with their mouths… Tell you what, after we’ll done here, we’ll go give him a good fuckin’ at both ends. Their little friend’s as pretty as a girl and as tight as a virgin-” 

Aramis’ self-control snapped when it dawned on his pain-addled mind that they were talking about D’Artagnan. He shouted and cursed at them. A meaty hand backhanded him, sending jolts of pain through his battered body. Someone grabbed his hair, yanked his face upwards and forced his mouth open. The stench of hot metal. Agony blazed through his entire head…

* * *

 

D’Artagnan was back. Buckingham’s men had tired of their games but the damage was done. The boy was whimpering and refused to speak. When he did speak, it was screamed pleas for mercy as he thrashed about in the throes of his nightmares. Athos had tried his best but the boy simply could not tolerate any touch, or even being near to another human being. Aramis wished he could do something to comfort the boy but his tongue was gone. All that remained of it was a stump. He would have wept tears of frustration if he could. The tears could not come.

Porthos was delirious. The infection had taken root as Aramis had feared. Occasionally, he would hallucinate about being back in Paris or back at his childhood home. He babbled on about some girl and a baron. Most of Porthos’ confused words were unintelligible. _Athos._ Oh, Athos must be beating himself up over the state they were in. _It’s not your fault. You’re not to blame…_ Aramis wanted to reassure him but he could not speak. He could not even hold Athos’ hand as his hands were all swollen and broken.  

* * *

 

The day of their deliverance was to be the day of their execution. Aramis wished he could offer his friends some words of comfort the way he had been taught back in the seminary. Some last words from a priest, an absolution. The duke had denied them a last chance at confession, stating that Catholic priests were hard to come by in England. _Perhaps they would like to make their confessions to the severed head of a priest charged with high treason, once their heads join his on the Bridge?_

Athos spoke for Aramis when he told Buckingham to go to hell.

The crowds jeered at them as they were transported to the scaffold. Aramis stood close enough to feel the brush of Athos’ shirt. Porthos was moaning at the bottom of the cart. D’Artagnan was silent. “I’m sorry,” Athos croaked. _The fault was never yours…_ Aramis leaned into Athos, earning- to his regret- a pained wince from his friend. The cart stopped. They had reached the execution ground.

First young D’Artagnan…Aramis sensed the boy leaving the cart without actually hearing him leave. He smelled the sweet copper of spilled blood as the boy died. _Is there a merciful God out there?_ Aramis pondered. _Had all the Scriptures, everything he was taught in the seminary all lies?_ He tried to pray aloud but the damage to his jaw and tongue was too much. He could not form the words. Next was Porthos, whose neck was thick enough to require three swings of the axe.

It was Aramis’ turn. He shook off the hand of a guard as soon as he had climbed the scaffold. The platform was slippery with blood. His feet slipped.

Pain exploded as his temple cracked against something hard. _The block?_ Before he could gather his wits to get up, a hand seized his hair and roughly yanked him up onto the sticky, coppery surface of the block. This was it. Aramis was teetering on the brink of eternity…

_Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be thy name… Thy kingdom come… Thy will…_


	3. D'Artagnan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has rape and non-consensual sex. Lots of it and major trauma caused to a character.

D’Artagnan scowled at Athos’ words. He was not leaving them behind, no matter what. He was not going to run home like some coward. Porthos was sorely wounded. He could not be moved for the next few days at least. Till then, their safest option was to lie low and avoid the soldiers. Athos was pacing about, thinking up some escape plan. Aramis was checking on Porthos’ stump again. It was a miracle the large man did not bleed out in the streets.

The door burst open. The soldiers’ attack was both sudden and brutal. D’Artagnan barely had time to raise his rapier before he found himself all but cornered by five soldiers. There was the stench of gunpowder as a pistol was fired. The youth choked on the heavy gun-smoke. _Aramis!_ Aramis was screaming. _Was he hit?_ Athos was bellowing like an angry ox as he fought to keep them from Porthos’ bed but there were too many of them and…

Pain exploded at the back of his skull. Everything went black.

* * *

 

“Nice to see you have joined us…” _That voice…_ D’Artagnan’s eyelids fluttered open. He struggled to lift his head. He was lying on his belly across a heavy table with his limbs were securely pinioned. He could not move. Slowly but surely, his vision cleared and the room stopped swimming. Buckingham smirked as he strolled casually over.

“Now, now, where were we before we were interrupted? Ah, yes. You were asking me the time- well, it is time you learned your place, boy…” Buckingham casually selected a wicked-looking instrument from the tray on a side table.

“I’m not a boy…” D’Artagnan spat. Buckingham ignored his protests and continued. “This little toy is the cat’s paw. Do you know what this does? Allow me to demonstrate…”

D’Artagnan gasped in pain as the claws of the cat’s paw raked into his shoulder, ripping both cloth and skin. A trickle of blood dripped onto the table from the deep lacerations.

“Look, you have dirtied my nice toy… What a naughty boy you are, no wonder they left you…” Buckingham tut-tutted and replaced the bloodied cat’s paw on the tray.

“Liar!” D’Artagnan forced that nagging doubt back down. _Where were his friends?_ _Athos would come up with some plan to save them, right? They’d come bursting in and…_

The duke strolled over to where a selection of straps and whips hung from the wall and selected a slender strap. He walked back to D’Artagnan and circled behind him. “Naughty boys should be flogged, don’t you agree?”

D’Artagnan gasped and tried to pull away when he felt the duke’s fingers unlacing his breeches, caressing him in places which made his breath hitch. Before the first whine of protest was out of his throat his bottom was bared. He jerked at the first bite of the strap across his bottom. It was swiftly followed by another lash, and yet another… The tears came unbidden after that. D’Artagnan’s rear was soon red and sore.

The duke had stopped flogging him to catch his breath. He walked over to where he could have a good look at the boy’s expression. Buckingham smiled at the sight. He always considered himself a connoisseur of beauty and what he saw pleased him. Earlier in his office he already found the boy pretty, but a trifle too cocky for his liking. Now, with D’Artagnan weepy-eyed, a hectic flush on his cheeks, those rosy ass-cheeks… Buckingham ran a considering hand down the boy’s flank. His captive flinched. Yanking up D’Artagnan’s head by a fistful of curls, he dipped low for a brutal kiss.

“Fuck!” Buckingham cussed and pulled back. His lower lip was torn. The brat had actually dared to bite him. Perhaps he needed to be broken further. Buckingham walked behind the boy and stroked that warm rear, earning a pleasing gasp from the prisoner. _Yes,_ he wanted to have him utterly broken, moaning and pleading, submit to him like a common whore. The duke fished out a jar of oil from his pocket.   

“Has Athos ever mounted you or do you just suck him off, eh? Or do you service the entire Musketeer Corps? You are far too weak to be a musketeer… Boys like you are good for only one thing…”

 D’Artagnan pulled at his bonds when he felt the first oil-slicked finger enter him. Another finger was added and the digits immediately set to work stretching his entrance. D’Artagnan tried to pull his spread legs together to no avail. “But you are still so deliciously tight… You must be skilled with your mouth…” the duke mocked as he massaged D’Artagnan’s rear with his free hand.

D’Artagnan’s mind reeled in disbelief at what was happening to him. He had heard whispered stories of sodomy but he never thought… The fingers brushed against something which made heat rush to D’Artagnan’s groin. _He didn’t want this!_ Yet his traitorous body was now responding readily to Buckingham’s skilled caresses. The hand left his ass cheeks and cupped his balls, stroked his stiffening cock. His hips bucked.

“Say you want it, slut…” The boy was nearing his limit. The duke could tell by the way he was squirming.

“N-no…” D’Artagnan moaned as the assault on his body continued. “S-stop…” To his relief, the tormenting fingers left his body. Then the duke grabbed his hips and lifted them up slightly…

D’Artagnan screamed as he was impaled roughly on Buckingham’s shaft in a single thrust. The prior stretching was insufficient to prepare him for the rude intrusion. The pain as his insides tore under the merciless rhythm was immense… The grunts, burning of his ass both inside and out each time he was lifted and slammed into the table as the duke pounded into his bowels. Each time, the man’s cock unerringly hit that spot which made the poor boy moan and see stars before his eyes. The hand which had earlier tormented his balls snaked in front of his hips, grabbing hold of his swollen cock… Pain and unbidden pleasure mixed in a confused haze…

“Come for me now…” Buckingham grunted. The hapless boy climaxed hard into Buckingham’s hand. Buckingham chuckled wickedly and then groaned as D’Artagnan’s shuddering passage brought on his own orgasm.

For a few heartbeats, they stood like that, Buckingham draped over the chained D’Artagnan with his cock still deep within the youth’s body. “Admit you loved that, boy…” the duke hissed into D’Artagnan’s ear as he wiped his hand clean of D’Artagnan’s seed on the boy’s tear-streaked cheeks. Slowly he pulled out and admired the trickle of cum and blood leaking from D’Artagnan’s cleft.

D’Artagnan lay there shivering and sobbing soundlessly from the shame and humiliation. He had crushed the boy. Buckingham cleaned himself off, redid his hose and wiped the mess on the boy’s hair as a final insult. D’Artagnan was too shaken to protest. Smiling like a cat, the duke stepped out of the room.

“He’s all yours… Take him away,” he commanded the men waiting outside as he left.

* * *

 

D’Artagnan sprawled on his cot in misery. His wrists still bore the marks of the manacles they had initially used to chain him to the bed. Blood, semen and urine stained the thin mattress under him. Each time the door opened, his hopes would soar before plummeting into an abyss. It was never them. After Buckingham had raped him, he had been raped so many times he had lost count if only to keep what was left of his sanity. His passage burned and bled constantly from the rapes. His throat was sore from the many times they had fucked his mouth. He could still taste the raw, salty liquid in it when they came inside his mouth and made him swallow. He could feel the stickiness of it in his hair and on his face when they came all over his face.

He no longer knew if the men who tormented him were the same guards who had hung him in chains and fucked him up against the wall in turn after they took him from Buckingham’s makeshift office or if they were a different crew all together. There were a few he did recall with a shudder – the sadist who used a dagger to cut up his back for daring to bite him, the guard who would beat him with a belt, the redhead with the beefy hands who choked him to near-unconsciousness during their rough coupling. _How he wished he had died then!_ He hated it when his body reacted and he came, often to the amusement of his tormentors. _So weak, so pathetic, a common slut… not fit to be a musketeer… No wonder they left him…_

On the occasions he fought back, he was swiftly overcome and harshly punished with their belts. They had fucked him with the neck of a wine bottle once until he passed out from the agony. He awoke some time later to find they had left it obscenely stuck inside him. It was all bloody when he managed to coax it out without inflicting further pain on his abused flesh. There was that pistol rammed into his throat which D’Artagnan had actually prayed it would go off inside his mouth and kill him. All that happened was him forced to lick his tormentor’s boots clean after he gagged on the barrel and threw up all over them.

Yet he feared being alone. That was when the doubts came as to the fate of his friends. The meals were meagre and irregular, but he had no real desire to eat. The water was fouled. He had witnessed one of his tormentors piss into the water bucket after he was finished raping him. Thirst won out eventually and he sipped a cautious handful of the water.

_If he could just stay alive, they would come for him. No, he did not want them to come and witness the extent of his degradation… No, they aren’t coming because he is a cheap whore not worth… They are dead, you moron…_

The door swung open. Five figures stepped inside. “On your knees, whore!”

D’Artagnan complied at the command. He had no strength left to resist. With trembling fingers he undid the man’s breeches and took the shaft into his mouth…  Someone walked behind D’Artagnan and flicked his shirt up to expose his bare bottom. D’Artagnan no longer wore his breeches as it hurt too much getting them on and they kept tearing them off him each time. Lecherous hands were all over him, pinching his nipples through his shirt… More hands were on his balls and cock…

When they were finally finished with him, he was left bruised, bleeding and whimpering in a pool of urine, spent seed and his blood.  

* * *

 

D’Artagnan wished he had died. They knew what happened to him. _Oh God, they knew!_ He saw it in Athos’ eyes. He could not bring himself to look Athos in the face again. _He could not bear it!_ Athos’ concerned touch on his person was enough to trigger a mindless panic. _Those hands caressing, pinching, prodding… violating and humiliating him… intruding into the most private parts of his body… And his body betraying him…_

Perhaps his friends were a dream and he was in that dismal cell waiting to be raped again. Surely that couldn’t be Porthos, who had always been so strong and cheerful, lying motionless on that mouldy straw? And Aramis just sitting there mute… Athos… No, he could not look him in the face, simply knowing he knew...

The nightmares, it they were indeed nightmares, were too real. _He was filthy, inside and out. No cleaning was going to change that, why bother? They’d come again to hurt him. He’ll never be free of them, ever, till his dying breath. How long would it take for him to die if he simply lay there and waited for death to take him away?_


	4. Athos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This section is quite similar to the short version on fanfiction.net but I have made some additions and removed parts mentioned in the earlier chapters.

If they had spotted that damn church spire in time… If they had not crashed that airship in London… If Porthos had not shattered his leg in the crash… If Aramis’ pistol had not misfired… If that boy had listened to him and fled for the coast… _If._ One word for futility. Athos closed his eyes. It ends here, waiting to lay their heads on the block before the headsman’s axe before a hostile London crowd. He was their leader and it was his fault that they were in this mess. Their captain could not help them. The queen who had sent them on this ill-fated mission could not help them. The king of France himself could not help them. France and England were now at war. France herself was probably in an uproar after the queen’s infidelity was exposed by the cardinal.

Buckingham was furious after they had stolen his airship and blasted the Tower to a smoking ruin and he had made sure they paid for it once they fell into his clutches. The whip, rack and heated irons – they had become well-acquainted with the instruments of torture during their captivity, which was soon to be at an end.

Porthos’ left leg was shattered in the crash, left hanging by a thin shred of skin at the knee. They knew he would lose the limb. At first Fortune seemed to smile on them. They found a sympathetic merchant who would spare them a room where Aramis could doctor Porthos the best he could. Perhaps the man mistook them for innocent pedestrians wounded when the airship wiped out a market square and a row of houses. They had to take the mangled bone and flesh off just below the knee, tying off the stump with Aramis’ belt and cauterising the raw wound with a red-hot poker. Athos had ordered D’Artagnan to leave but the boy was adamant not to abandon them. _Planchet?_ That servant could have fled back across the Channel by now, if Milady had not caught onto their desperate ploy and made short work of the hapless man.

Then Dame Fortune turned her back on them like the harlot she is. The merchant betrayed them to the duke’s men.

When the door was kicked in, they could not flee, not with Porthos still groggy from his crude surgery and the brandy he had been plied with beforehand. Aramis pulled out his pistol but something went wrong when he pulled the trigger. An explosion of flame and smoke billowed back into the shooter’s face and Aramis was on the floor screaming with agony. D’Artagnan put up a fierce resistance but he was swiftly knocked out by a soldier who had sneaked up behind him. Athos tossed away his rapier when the guards pointed their swords at his the throats of his wounded friends. Unarmed, they were swiftly manacled.

* * *

 

He studied the faces of his comrades in arms as they trundled on to their execution site amidst flying clods of mud and jeers from the London crowd. The clothes they had worn to London were now rags hanging off their emaciated frames. _Hung, drawn and quartered_ – Buckingham had grinned when he pronounced their death sentence. However, His Majesty had chosen to be merciful and have them beheaded before their bodies were dismembered, parboiled and displayed for all to gawk at. Their heads would end up on the Bridge.

Perhaps they were already dead men. Athos’ body protested from the many wounds he had collected in Buckingham’s dungeons. His right arm was dislocated or broken at the very least. It hurt his feet when he stood. His torturers had whipped his soles until they were bloody.

Porthos was delirious from wound-fever. He was always one to cheer them up whenever the going got tough. Hardly anything seemed to keep him down for long. Athos’ heart ached to see his long-time friend reduced to such a sorry state. Even without the headsman’s axe, Porthos would be dead from blood-poisoning by nightfall.

 

_“Porthos, please… speak to me…” Athos coaxed as he cradled Porthos’ head on his lap. The large man only moaned and muttered unintelligibly. He was dying and Athos simply could not accept that. Perhaps if he had cleaned out the deep gashes on his back and chest properly… If he had the medical skill and tools to deal with that broken leg with the shin bone sticking out… If he could do something about that infected stump… If-_

* * *

 

Aramis’ sight was lost for good. His jaw had been broken as were his fingers. Buckingham had personally crushed them one by one as Athos watched. Aramis leaned against Athos, as if desperate for some form of reassurance of his friend’s presence. The guards had taken away that silver cross Aramis so treasured. The former seminarian had cried out when they tore it off his neck as they stretched him on the rack and burned him with hot irons. They had also torn out his tongue with red-hot pincers.

“I’m sorry…” Athos croaked. His throat was dry. He never thought he would miss hearing Aramis’ annoying Latin. Aramis seemed to have heard his words. He leaned his head against Athos’ shoulder, earning a wince from him.

* * *

 

_“Buckingham, you bastard!” Athos fought against his bonds but they held fast. He wanted to knock his nemesis away from his friend, beat him to the floor and choke the life from him._

_Aramis’ head was lolling from the pain now. His lip was bloodied from biting down to keep from screaming. He might have fallen out of his chair if it were for the shackles holding him in place. Aramis’ right hand was mangled. Some of the broken finger bones poked out from the torn skin._

_“Tsk-tsk, Athos, such language doesn’t sit your station, Comte…” the duke shrugged and slipped the thumb screw over to Aramis’ left thumb. The former seminarian screamed aloud as his thumb was crushed in the device._

It had been agony tending to Aramis’ hands. Athos had to use strips torn from his own shirt as bandages. Aramis, who had the most medical skill among them, guided him along. Athos feared Aramis might lose his fingers and the use of his hands. The eyes were not recovering at all. When he undid the bandage from the eyes, Aramis could see nothing at all, so he said. When Aramis lost his tongue to the torturers…

_“Aramis!” Athos tried to crawl towards his friend. They had ripped out Aramis’ tongue. Cudgels smashed into his ribs and shoulders as he forged on grimly. Aramis was just hanging there, blood pouring from his mouth… So much blood… Yet somehow, Aramis had survived to join him on the scaffold._

* * *

 

The sight of their young companion hurt Athos the most. D’Artagnan was young and pretty enough to pass for a girl. Athos had been a soldier long enough to recognize the leers the breadless youth earned from their jailors, or how their hands would linger on his body when they manhandled his unconscious form during the arrest. He had been held separately from them for several days, during which Athos had thought him dead from that head-wound, mild as it had seemed. It was hard to tell the passing of time in the dungeons.

_Buckingham had taken him from the cell for a private conversation. Athos regarded the man coldly. Somehow he knew this would be about D’Artagnan. Athos was most concerned about the boy’s absence. It would be a blessing if the boy had died. The duke must have noticed how it pained him when he watched his friends suffer on the rack or under the whip. Athos had been tortured too, but nowhere as badly as Aramis or Porthos were. If this was another session of torture, he would expect Porthos or Aramis to be tortured alongside him._

_D’Artagnan was nothing but a callow country boy. He was no soldier. Even Aramis, with his scholarly ways and slight built, was a seasoned soldier through and through. They were used to getting injuries, enduring pain… D’Artagnan? Naïve fool would probably buckle like a house of cards under torture. Perhaps that was what the bastard was banking on to break Athos’ defiance. Have the boy tortured-_

_“Tell me, Athos, do you miss your pretty little boy? Such a sweet, sweet thing…”_

_“What have you done with D’Artagnan?”A mix of hope and dread rose in him then at the duke’s words._

_“Savoured his charms entirely. He is a really good fuck, but you should know that already. So very popular among the guards… They say he’s so eager to please and limber as they come. That tight ass, that mouth… Now that my men have had their fill of his company, we thought perhaps you might like to fuck him before you die. Though I very much doubt Porthos and Aramis would be up to any fucking …”_

When they finally did return D’Artagnan to their cell, all the spirit had been flayed from him. They had broken him so utterly that he would not speak or even look Athos in the eye. When Athos touched him, the youth would flinch and scamper over to the furthest, darkest corner of the cell and cower there whimpering like a scared child. He hardly ate, drank or slept. When D’Artagnan did sleep, he would awake screaming from the nightmares.

Anger flared up and quickly died in Athos. Perhaps in the end, it was his fault.

D’Artagnan refused to allow him to tend to his wounds so Athos did not know the full extent of his injuries. However, he did notice how it pained the youth to walk or even move. The seat of the boy’s breeches was constantly bloody. D’Artagnan watched their approaching demise with disinterest. His mind had retreated to some distant corner and he no longer cared what happened to his person.

* * *

 

The headsman beckoned them from the scaffold. D’Artagnan was the first. Pale-faced and hollowed-eyed, he mounted the scaffold with the calmness of a martyr. Athos thought he saw those bruised lips smile slightly as D’Artagnan obediently knelt and laid his head on the block. He turned away when the axe was raised. A dull meaty thud was soon drowned out by the cheering crowd. Athos choked back a sob when the executioner held the head aloft by that mop of tousled curls before tossing it carelessly into a basket. The still-bleeding body was unceremoniously kicked off the scaffold to where the executioner’s assistants waited to strip and dismember it. Aramis mumbled what might be a prayer. Athos could not be sure since Aramis could no longer speak with his jaw smashed and his tongue gone.

Next was Porthos. The guards had to drag him up by his shoulders as he was unable to walk. Once he was in position, the axe was swung. The blade fell short and hacked into his shoulder. Porthos let loose a moan of pain. Athos closed his eyes. It took two more whacks before the moaning ceased. Like D’Artagnan, Porthos’ head and corpse were swiftly dealt with. The scaffold was slick with blood now and Athos could smell the coppery sweetness of it.

The soldiers forced Aramis out of the cart. Blind Aramis tried to walk with as much dignity as he could muster but his bare feet slipped on the blood and he fell heavily against the block. He cracked his head hard enough on the corner to stun him momentarily. Growling with impatience, a soldier seized him by the hair and positioned him in place for the blade. It was over quickly and Athos wept openly as a third head was tossed into the basket.

Athos limped up the scaffold. Aramis’ headless corpse was still lying on the edge of the scaffold. The assistants were still busy with the earlier corpses. It was lying on its front. The sight of Aramis’ mangled hands still tied behind his back cut to Athos’ soul. Soon it will all be over. “Monsieur, I forgive you…” he forced the customary words out through chapped lips. The executioner nodded slightly, either acknowledging his words or beckoning him to the bloody block. Resigned, he stretched his neck out on the block and closed his eyes.

_They would be waiting for him there, wouldn’t they?_ Aramis with the annoying Latin phrases on the tip of his tongue, arguing theology and philosophy just to irk him. Porthos dancing with some smiling wench and stealing his wine bottles, and Athos would probably find both Porthos and his wench in his bed going like a pair of springtime bunnies. And young D’Artagnan with a huge honest smile on his face and all the eager promise of youth like a wide-eyed puppy trotting at his heels and getting underfoot. What could have been and should have… _If…_

The last thing he heard was the whistle of the axe blade through the air… 

**Author's Note:**

> Finally posted my first complete explicit fic on AO3. My non-explicit works may be found at fanfiction.net under the same penname. Hope to post more fics here.


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